1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sensor element detecting energy, for example, light and heat, and a method of driving the sensor element, and an input device receiving an input of information in accordance with magnitude of the energy, a display device with an input function and a communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, flat display devices such as liquid crystal display devices and organic EL display devices have increasingly had multiple functions in which a screen input with a touch panel, a scanner, or the like, luminance control of a backlight, or the like is realized through arranging photo sensor elements along a display screen or in the vicinity thereof. As a photo sensor element provided in such a display device, a PIN-type thin film diode using a silicon (Si) thin film has been widely employed because of its simple manufacture process.
In the photo sensor element made of the PIN-type thin film diode, a semiconductor layer including a p-type semiconductor region and an n-type semiconductor region with an intrinsic semiconductor region in between is provided, and the intrinsic semiconductor region serves as a photo-reception section. In the photo sensor element having such a configuration, for the purpose of preventing leak current, proposed is the configuration in which a gate electrode is provided in a region facing the intrinsic semiconductor region with an insulating film in between (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-119719).